Tao

Having a break from the life on the road for a while, the only decisions concerning whether to lie on my back or tommy, with or without a hammock..so many options. Well I do admit we have done some diving and snorkeling.



We found one of the more quiet spots on the island. They are really friendly here, having Finnair blankets and everything to make us feel home!

Go celebrate Christmas with visa!

Thats actually an add we saw in Singapore.

If someone dares to complain about the commercialization of Christmas in Finland, go there for a sec and you'll say nothing more.



We tried to continue to Kuala Lumpur by train on Christmas eve but it was full. Who goes anywhere on Christmas eve?? Luckily we got the last spots on a bus and got there despite the ominous "visa on arrival not allowed" note on our ticket.

Indonesia

Summary: endless rice terraces, school groups going bananas about western people, touts (Transport!Transport..praaaah..) and volcanoes. Beautiful though for most part not very relaxing.

We started on the south coast of Bali and continued to Ubud, in the inland of Bali:


Morning walk around Ubud:



We continued on to Java and got to know to unhurried indonesian trains, one of which almost made us miss our flight out of Jakarta (we still had 15 minutes left in the end, though).




We were planning to climb the Bromo volcanoe, but it was spitting too much smoke out so it was closed and Saku got to feel how it really is traveling in Asia and got sick. And it was a bad weather. So we took the hint and continued to Yogyakarta, some kind of culture capital of Java.

Morning mist at Borobudur, a buddhist temple near Yogyakarta:


Borobudur, could not climb up cause the nearby Merapi had erupted a couple of months ago and covered it in ash. You get the point, we were not too lucky with volcanoes this time. (I'm wrong to complaing, though, we are a lot luckier than the 300 people who got killed when Merapi erupted).



Mendut temple:


Prambanan:

One of the screaming school groups: (cute!!)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from one of the least-christmas-like places, Kuala Lumpur. Missing real (finnish) Christmas. Hugs to everyone!

Java

We had to come here because my Saku thought it has smthg to do with computers. The story goes after Tongariro we went to Ackland for a couple of days and then with the longest possible hassle, with 4 flights and around 30 hours spent at different airports, we got ourselves to Bali and have since worked our way through the island and onwards to Java. We've now reached Surabaya and continuing towards Yogyakarta and Jakarta.

This morning at the train station a couple of blokes came to ask if they can talk with us to practise their english. Soon there were also heaps of children flocking around and looking at us like we were celebrities of smthg.

Tonga

..riro.

Took a long time to get this online but here we go, the last tramp in NZ:

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Before reporting the actual Northern Circuit walk I have to mention one glorious moment of victory. We spent a couple of nights at a backcountry hut and among other things had a river boat race. Here you can see the winning ship with the stream in the background.



Later along the track we had a couple of rematches with floating rocks. I guess they have everything in NZ.

Morning moods at the hut, which we were lucky enough to have all by ourselves for the second night.



Towards the actual hike and Mt Ngauruhoe:



Mt Ngauruhoe closer:



Climbing begins to the top of the cone:



Up!



Outer ridge of the crater:



Inner crater:



In addition to the clouds you can see steam rising from the mountain:



I recall the discussion went:

-the mountain is steaming.
-no its the clouds, if it was the mountain the steam would be warm.
-it is actually pretty warm.
then saku stuck his hand in
-damn it is actually hot!

So we found out the mountain was active. We got another evidence of that when on the next day we saw the mountain spitting out a black spot..



..which proved to be a rock:



Luckily Saku is a strong guy so he lifted the rock and saved me. Thanks.

A couple of random shots along the way:

Red Crater, the dike was formed when lava pushed up through it:



Blue Lake and Emerald lakes and the hiking track between them:



A wiew from Ketetahi Hut, truly a room with a good view:



Walking into Mordor:



Mt Ruapehu at sunset:



I kinda new that Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu are still active volcanoes but didn't really think about it. After seeing a video of Ngauruhoe's eruption 1975 with 15m lava rocks rolling down, it felt, however, a bit less far away. It also helped to find out that Ruapehu erupted in 1945, 1995, 1996, 2007 and 2009 there was a volcanic earthquake but no proper eruption. Anyway, we didn't see one..blaah. Luckily there's Iceland granting enough smoke for everyone.

World Hairy Tits again..

..this time with a double status, both cultural and natural. The place is Tongariro National Park, also known as Mordor. We're gonna do a little circuit around Ngauruhoe (Mt Doom) in a couple of days.

Here's a couple of pics from along the way from Queenstown:

We bought a map from the visitor centre of Wellington, the capital:



Avalanche peak near Arthur's Pass:


Weather was great but suddenly we saw that storm coming and left pretty quickly, it took only like half an hour for the weather to change completely: